The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO

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November 16, 2008

Oklahoma delegation mixed on automaker aid

The Associated Press

OKLAHOMA CITY — It appears Oklahoma’s congressional delegation has mixed opinions about a proposed bailout package for financially struggling U.S. automakers.

Some of them caution that such an idea, along with a proposed second economic stimulus package, should not be forced through what figures to be a brief lame-duck session before the next Congress begins work.

The delegation’s lone Democrat, Rep. Dan Boren of Muskogee, said he supports another economic stimulus package, but it appears few of his Oklahoma colleagues agree with him, at least for now.

“Throwing money at our waning economy though a second stimulus package alone will not solve anything,” U.S. Rep. Frank Lucas, a Republican from Cheyenne, told The Oklahoman’s Washington bureau.

Another Republican, newly re-elected Sen. Jim Inhofe, put it bluntly to the Tulsa World’s Washington bureau: “You don’t stimulate the economy by giving away more money.”

Inhofe also had harsh criticism for Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s handling of $700 billion already approved by Congress to help bail out the nation’s beleaguered financial system. Inhofe suggested freezing what is left of the initial $350 billion in bailout money, although such a plan would seem to be a longshot.

Democratic leaders, including President-elect Barack Obama, want to use some of the $700 billion to aid the domestic auto industry. Boren said he supports “bridge loans ... to get them back on sound footing. There are millions of jobs connected to the Big Three (automakers).”

That one of those companies might fail is not a good enough reason to bail them out, Inhofe said.

“If we keep on nursing a broken system, then we can’t expect to have a different result come later on,” he said. “I just think we have to draw the line someplace, and the time is here.”

Rep. Tom Cole, a Republican from Moore, said that care should be taken not to rush through major legislation during the brief session.

“A lot of bad things happen in lame-duck sessions,” Cole said. “There’s not enough time and not enough focus.”

Fellow Republican Rep. Mary Fallin of Oklahoma City said that the nation has reached a point “where we have to make some very difficult decisions on what types of financial obligations we can actually afford.”

Meanwhile, GOP Sen. Tom Coburn of Muskogee said that instead of the Senate considering public lands bills that he has previously blocked, it “should devote its full attention to our economic crisis.”

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